​
“Science is the only guarantee that our business insights will still have meaning the day someone throws the next management catchphrase at people and calls into question everything we do. Researchers often take smaller steps, but they take them carefully, and build on what is known. Eventually, that pays off."
Markus Reitzig
Markus Reitzig was a trained as a scientist and was about to become a lawyer before he dedicated himself to the social sciences. After studying chemistry (Master of Chemistry) and law, he completed postgraduate studies in business research (M.B.R.) and received his Ph.D. in business economics (Dr.oec.publ.) .
​
His multidisciplinary background allows Markus to investigate questions at the interface between technology, strategy and organization in such depth that almost all of his studies have been published in the world's leading journals in his field.
​
Markus's group at the University of Vienna is dedicated to studying four major subject areas at the technology/strategy/organizations interface - corporate strategy, organization design, group decision making, and innovation. To do so, the lab draws on all major methods of social science research
(mathematical modeling, computer simulations, small-number data analysis, large-number data analysis, field and laboratory experiments).
Corporate strategy
Corporate strategy - explores the question of how companies can create competitive advantages , particularly through the choice of their organizational design ; aims to identify and describe mechanisms that allow top managers to set themselves apart from the competition; currently sheds light on how trends towards open innovation , the use of artificial intelligence , global networking , platforms lead to a change in understanding of what top managers should do.
Latest publications:
"Surrendering Control to Gain Advantage: Reconciling Openness and the Resource-based View of the Firm." (with Alexy, O., West, J., and Klapper, H.), Strategic Management Journal 39/6 2018, 1704-1727. [FT50] [UTD]
"Corporate Hierarchy and Vertical Information Flow Within the Firm - a Behavioral View"
(with Maciejovsky, B.), Strategic Management Journal, 36/13 2015, 1979-1999. [FT50] [UTD]
“Knowledge Worth Having in 'Excess': The Value of Tacit and Firm-specific Human Resource Slack,” (with Lecuona Torras, R.),
Strategic Management Journal, 35/7 2014, 954-973. [FT50] [UTD]
“Firms' Counterintuitive Appropriation Strategies - Private-Collective Innovation and Competition” (with Alexy, O.)
Research Policy, 42/4 2013, 895-913. [FT50]
Organizational design
Organizational design - deals with the question of how division of labor and collaboration work; aims to describe structures, processes and rules that top managers can specify in order to achieve a given goal; current investigations dedicated to understanding how the structures of the future must look so that well-trained creative people can be productive quickly; demystifies catchphrases like holocracy , fills agility with life, shows the possibilities and limits of flat organizations .
Latest publications:
“Authority and Search in Organizations,” (with Richter, V., Janjic, R., Keck, S., Klapper, H.), Working Paper, 2020.
“The Emergence of Organizational Design Solutions,” (with Alexy, O., Pötz, K., and Puranam, P.), under review.
“On the Effects of Authority on Peer Motivation: Learning from Wikipedia” (with Klapper, H.)
Strategic Management Journal 39/8 2018, 2178-2203. [FT50] [UTD]
“What's“ New ”about New Forms of Organizing ?,” (with Puranam, P., and Alexy, O.),
Academy of Management Review, 39/2 2014, 162-180. [FT50] [UTD]
Group decisions
Group Decision Making - deals with the question of how collectives can make better decisions than individuals; aims to describe processes and rules that enable more precise and targeted decisions by committees; illuminates current questions about the possibilities and limits of the wisdom of the crowd or network-like structures.
Latest publications:
“Organizational Decision-Making” (with Klapper, H., Maciejovsky, B., Puranam, P.), under review.
“The Organization of Persuasion Processes - Experimental Evidence” (with Klapper, H., Maciejovsky, B., and Puranam, P.), Working paper
“Political Decision Making - a Simulation Approach” (with Lego, T. and, Klapper, H.), Working paper
Innovation / IP
Management of technical innovation and intellectual property - deals with the question of how new technologies can be translated into products and how rights to technologies can be used profitably by innovators; aims to provide R&D managers with decision support for the exploitation of in-house inventions; deal in the past with the evaluation of patents and the description of the strategies of and against patent trolls
Latest and older publications:
“AI and ML - Empirical Evidence on Recent Labor Market Effects” (with Mitroi, V.)
To be submitted
“On Sharks, Trolls, and Their Patent Prey - Unrealistic Damage Awards and Firms' Strategies of 'Being Infringed'” (with Henkel, J. and Heath, C.), Research Policy, 36/1 2007, 134-154. [FT50]
“Improving Patent Valuation Methods for Management - Validating New Indicators by Analyzing Application Rationales”, Research Policy, 33/6/7 2004, 939-957. [FT50] [PhD]